Calling All Elders

When I was in my late 20s I drove by Utah Valley University every day of my life. I was a truck driver at the time and would often look eastward towards campus from I-15 and fantasize about going back to school. Sitting beneath the stunning Timpanogos Wilderness, Orem is undoubtedly one of the more beautiful cities in the country, and knowing the people of Utah, I often idealized how safe and welcoming the campus environment would be.

Yesterday conservative political activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated in broad daylight on the lawn of that very same campus in Orem. Hours later a school shooter opened fire on his classmates and took his own life in the small mountain town of Evergreen, just 10 miles west of my current home in Lakewood, CO.

Should you drive 30 miles northeast of Evergreen you’ll run into the King Soopers where a 21-year-old gunman killed 10 in 2021. Take 36 into Aurora and you’ll run into the movie theater where in 2012 another gunman killed 12 and wounded over 80 on opening night of The Dark Knight Rises. Arriving back in Lakewood you wouldn’t have to travel far to find another site of mass terror, as I did this past spring when I decided to walk my dog at a nearby lake and accidentally stumbled on the Columbine Memorial, dedicated to the 13 students and one teacher who lost their lives in what is still the deadliest school shooting in Colorado history.

Part of the reason I mention the above is to exemplify just how widespread and simultaneously close to home these sorts of moral atrocities have become. Though we hold Colorado and other mountain west states in high regard for their wilderness, national parks, wildlife and beautiful open space, the reality of mental health in this part of the country is that all 10 of the states ranking highest in suicide lie west of the Mississippi with eight of those residing either in or west of the Rockies.

The other reason I regrettably highlight these tragedies is to discuss what I feel is by far the most important comorbid factor in all of these cases: intergenerational letdown.

At this point school and public shootings have been committed by people of all grade levels ranging from preschool to university, all major religions, sexes, genders, races and virtually any other identity marker you can think of — the same goes for the victims of these shootings. Naturally in the aftermath of such horrors we instinctively reach to diagnose, pathologize, blame and scapegoat, and yet in our desperate attempt to pluck at the lowest hanging fruit I’m often stunned at our inability to see what’s right in front of our very eyes.

The low-hanging fruit in this dialogue is the soundbites you’ll often hear on repeat from mainstream media: guns, race, politics, good vs. evil, radicalization and so on. While certainly important factors in the conversation I’ve yet to hear any longform discussion about the repeated transgenerational failure of the adults in our country to leave our children with a world markedly better than what we inherited.

To say this is to by no means cast blame on one particular generation, but rather to point out a deeply imbedded and inherited way of life that’s been a mainstay of our culture for decades. When we hear statistics about how Generation Z —born roughly between 1997 and 2012 — spends an average of six hours a day on their phones, how one in five have seriously considered suicide in their lifetimes, or how two of three report struggling with mental health symptoms, we tend to then see these features as characteristics innate to who they are rather than burdens bestowed on them by generations prior.

Increasingly mainstream terms like the “Grandmother Effect” and “Seventh Generation Principle” harken back to more traditional customs humans have employed in helping to ensure the health and wellbeing of future generations for millennia, the former describing sociological and psychological benefits elders impart in the rearing of grandchildren and the latter an indigenous Iroquois belief system that required tribespeople to behave and manage their environment so that those seven generations into the future would benefit from that same bountiful habitat.

What is perhaps so startling about the direction of our culture is the way in which each generation increasingly inherits the debts, poor decisions and nearsighted belief systems of the one prior and must then decide how to manage that unrequested baggage all before their brains are even close to being fully developed. Our children are not waging cultural, mental or even physical wars they created, but rather attempting to manage ones they’ve been handed by the unconscious actions of their ancestors. When undertaken on a more longterm basis this sort of unresolved inheritance begins to accumulate and compound, resulting in more and more weight each generation must carry and therefore less resources they possess themselves in order to carve out a sustainable future down the road. The bill for this sort of mentality has most obviously come due in the form of our national debt, chronic health issues, homeownership crisis, technology addictions and currently most glaring as of this past week: our endless, divisive and quite literally lethal political rhetoric.

To illustrate the importance of intergenerational communication and lineages look no further than the animal kingdom. A common error we make in our casual observance of nature is to assume infant species are born equipped with the ability to survive and navigate the world at birth, and while this is certainly the case for many reptiles, it is far less so for mammals. Basic tasks like locating trail systems, eating, hunting, communicating and even regulating emotional responses are often learned behaviors passed down from parent to offspring over the course of millions of years. Remove this ancient parentage, as happens when animals enter into zoos or other domestic environments, and their behaviors begin to change quite rapidly in successive generations. Born entirely dependent on their caregivers with brains that don’t fully develop until the mid 30s, humans are complete outliers in the game of transgenerational learning, spending the entire first half of life absorbing new information, new roles and new ways of interpreting the world before becoming true adults who can then pass that very same wisdom onto their offspring.

It is in taking all this into consideration that the murder of Charlie Kirk is so symbolic in our current zeitgeist. Starting in his own adolescent years Charlie was someone who spent his entire life engaged with the youth of our country in an attempt to push the values and beliefs of future generations in a direction he felt was most promising for longterm flourishing. He traveled around to college campuses, set up tents and challenged young minds to debates on some of the more hot-button topics in society that have been brewing for decades. He was no doubt a polarizing figure and like all polarizing figures he became the product of systemwide projective identification. If you were on the right he was a savior, and if on the left an increasingly existential threat. It is a sad reflection on the state of our society that there was not enough room for Charlie to exist as a mother’s son, passionate father and avuncular provocateur who could at times be overly direct with language in an attempt to express highly complex and imperfect political opinions.

Though it may be difficult for some to draw a connection between Charlie and the cohort of liberal-minded revolutionaries martyred in the 1960s, it is quite clear to me that underneath the surface of these tragic deaths there is a throughline of what happens when elders go AWOL in their responsibilities to future generations and become complacent in their own critical thinking and rigid belief systems they inherited. In the 60s it was sending our youth to die in a war halfway around the world for a cause even the adults didn’t believe in, forcefeeding them outdated racial and sexual stereotypes and stonewalling youngsters for exercising the right to do what they chose with their minds and bodies.

Today it’s… well, I’ll leave that up for you to decide. While we’re certainly still in the midst of a sociopolitical maelstrom, one thing is increasingly clear from my standpoint: We need more adults, grandmas, mentors and elders willing to think seven generations ahead, not only for the safety and health of our children, but for the sustainability of all life on Earth.

Hide n’ Seek at Headwaters

Photo credit: @obecuarto

This is me, dripping in mud, head to toe, finger to finger, my entire body completely drenched. Above, Nick sprinkles even more dry dirt across my back. This is part of an exercise Tim Corcoran leads to help people feel what it’s like to be entirely camouflaged with the Earth.

To get this saturated with mud Tim took us to where one of the many streamlets on his property pools into a small bog. Each taking a turn, we lay down in the cold mud and roll till entirely covered. Tim also instructed us to plug our ears when dunking heads while our guide Zander reported how he had to go to the doctor recently and get his ears cleaned out due to too much mud accumulation.  

It was grey and cold outside when we dunked, probably in the low 50s. Some men went one foot at a time, slowly inching in, and others, like Nick, dove head first and began rolling like a wet dog. 

When my turn arrived I dipped my feet in first, sat down, then plugged my ears and lowered my head backwards till completely submerged. Nick then cupped his hands and splashed more across areas of my body that weren’t yet covered. Though I’ve never been baptized I’d consider this just about the closest thing to it. I’m glad it happened in the mud.

Once soaked we then lay on the ground and rolled in the drier dirt, covering our whole bodies with another layer of twigs, leaves, pine needles, bugs and whatever else would stick from the topsoil. 

After everyone was fully cloaked in mud Tim then split us into two groups, instructing the first to find a spot to hide and the other to then try and spot all members of the first group after fully stationed in a fixed location. 

I was initially in the second group and so waited for the first group to get settled into position. Soon I began to shiver and thought how this was not the first time I’d been soaking wet, cold and shivering, but it was certainly the first time in my life I’d been wet, cold, and also drenched head to toe in mud while shivering at the same time. 

Soon Tim returned from helping camouflage the first group and instructed us to form a line and follow him to their hiding spot. He told us to also be quiet as we walked to help deepen our connection with the land and spirit of the exercise. 

Turning a corner I noticed the first man sitting vertical against a tree stump. His eyes were closed and a small tree branch extended upwards from the hair on his head. Though more obvious than the others I was taken aback by the beauty, as I’d never seen anything like this before. I thought how not a single art installation in New York City could ever replicate the initial feeling I had in seeing this man leaning against this tree, covered head to toe in all the same organic materials as the forest.

Moving along we slowly noticed more and more men as we glided through the pine-needle trail. Tim commented on the beauty of each after we all collectively pointed them out. If you were a deer or even another human walking through the woods it would be difficult to notice any of these men, I thought. When our group got to the end we realized we hadn’t even spotted one of the men who was hiding right below our feet. 

It was then our group’s turn to hide and so this time Zander took us to a different segment of the forest. Walking through the various fallen logs I chose to lay parallel to a tree. I initially lay sideways but Zander suggested laying facedown to disguise myself lower to the ground. Once set, he then covered me with smaller tree branches and dead wood I’d collected nearby. 

As I lay stomach down facing the dirt I felt an immediate sense of calm come over me. Something about this felt very childlike, similar to hike and seek perhaps. It also felt very comforting being so low to the ground, almost entirely naked and tasked with such a simple mission: to be as still as possible till found.  

Looking downward into the dirt my nose was only a few centimeters off the ground, and as I breathed I began to ingest that distinguishable taste of dirt, slightly metallic yet somehow still refreshing. Though I certainly did not want to eat it, I could not help but want more of whatever it was I was inhaling. 

Soon after, ants began to bite my legs. I knew if I moved I would ruin my camouflage and I wanted badly to go unseen by the other group. And so I lay still as I could, the bites increasing in frequency, climbing from my legs onto my back, arms, shoulders and neck. 

Once saturated in the stinging of the bites something shifted inside me and I somehow instinctively dropped into a meditative state, contemplating the difference between pain and displeasure. These bites did hurt, but I also reasoned they were more uncomfortable than painful, which somehow made being attacked by an ant colony more tolerable. 

Becoming evermore resigned to the fact I chose to lay directly atop an anthill, I then switched my focus again to try and time how long I would be in this position. Ten minutes went by, then 15, and perhaps 25 before I heard the crunching footsteps and hushed voices of the other group. “I see one!” someone exclaimed. “Shh,” someone else said. 

As the group approached I continued to hear scattered whispers. I also noticed how strange it felt to be so still, so hidden, and yet so naked and exposed at the same time while a whole group of people towered above, assessing and discussing my body. Tim then finally announced they could see me and requested I reveal myself. 

Just prior to moving a series of visions flashed before me. I’d never quite felt this sensation or experience but can only describe it as feeling deeply connected to something or someone from the past. As the visions became more clear I understood that what I was experiencing was some form of deep primal re-enactment of the hunters and warriors who moved so stealthily through the forests in order to capture their prey. 

With this vision firmly entrenched in my bones and blood I then spawned from the ground and mocked as though I had some form of a primitive crossbow, taking aim at the opposing group members and eliminating each, one arrow at a time. Thankfully many of these men whom I did not know well also found humor in my Braveheartesque reenactment, Tim remarking how this exercise often brings out the “warrior” side in men. 

The rest of the weekend at Headwaters was similarly raw, unexplainable and so deeply connective. Some 15-plus men climbed a pine tree together, sat silently and looked eastward towards Mt. Shasta, towering regally over all life below. We also carried hefty stones that symbolized our shadow parts around camp, buried them beneath a bonfire, then plucked them one by one to use as a glowing-amber heat source for a sweat lodge. We prayed and meditated in the misty forest at sunrise, sang call-and-response hymns, slept beneath a meteor shower, dipped daily in stone-dammed creek pools, built a log cabin together and tracked local mountain lion and bear footsteps. 

Returning home, I took a small two-seater plane and gazed below as we jetted past a vast Western landscape I’ve traversed so many times before by car, truck and foot. Having lived below Shasta as well as various parts of Utah and Colorado, it almost felt like I was peering out the window retracing so much of my life flying back home. We even flew over the dry desert camp used for Burning Man at one point — what a sight to see from above. 

Once home I reluctantly decided to shower for work the next day. As the steamy hot water hit my body the smell of dirt and campfire exploded from my skin. Even once dry the scent of burning firewood emanated from the long hair beside my cheekbones. 

As I applied deodorant and combed hair my girlfriend entered and started commenting on the campfire odor. She became increasingly curious, looked me up and down and grasped my ear, pulling it closer to her face.

“Why is your ear filled with dirt?” she asked. 

“Well,” I said, and proceeded to try and explain how a bunch of grown men willingly decided to roll around in mud and play hide and seek in the woods. 

“Wow,” she said. “Sounds… interesting.” 

I agreed and retired from trying to explain any further. Some things in life you just have to experience to understand.